


Five Miles Away

by Makigaki



Series: The Canals Running Through My Heart [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Concentration Camps, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, Italian Nico di Angelo, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-22 03:30:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15572778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Makigaki/pseuds/Makigaki
Summary: Because nobody talks about the oppression of Italian immigrants during World War II. Or the Italians in concentration camps.





	Five Miles Away

**Author's Note:**

> This is for my Italian heritage.

Nico hated America. The people were awful. It was bad enough that he was Italian. But Nico was from the north. You know, the half of the country in cahoots with Hitler. Yeah,  _that_  north. It only got worse. Nico and his family were from  _Venice_. America didn't like  _Venice_. They were staying in a hotel, and Nico could hear the whispers. His grandfather was a diplomat, of course Nico understood English. Things like, 'enemy alien' and 'grease ball' and 'guinea'. They called his mother, his hardworking, beautiful mother, 'wop' and 'dago' and sometimes even, 'Catholic'. They were very insistent and clear that dark-featured Catholics like Nico, Bianca, and Maria di Angelo weren't welcome.

Nico and Bianca didn't go to school here. It was more than five miles away. While his mother was working in a factory, Nico and Bianca could only play with the other Italian children. Some of them weren't even  _from_  Italy. In fact, most of their families had been living in America for generations. Nico learned about how they weren't even allowed to have jobs at the water from one boy who's father used to be a fisherman. Until he was imprisoned without a sentence or trial. Nico would never forget the day he heard about a little girl's father being sent to a concentration camp in Montana.

To Nico, America wasn't much better than Germany. Instead of the stars that the Jews had to wear, Nico got an, 'enemy alien registration card' that he had to have on his person at all times. Nico really hated America. Finally, in 1943, Italy surrendered. Things got minimally better. His mother had gotten an apartment in '42 and they celebrated in it. From her time in the factory, Maria had made some Italian and Jewish friends, and a few of them came over. Nico could hold a basic conversation with those Jewish ladies in Yiddish, but not much more.

When the war ended in '45, Nico and Bianca ran to the block where they knew the other Italians lived. They were ecstatic, throwing flowers and such about, waving American flags. Nico couldn't stop smiling. Couldn't stop until his father took them back to the hotel, where his mother died two days later. Nico hated America, but he hated the world a bit more. 

**Author's Note:**

> Though it was only for a year, Italians weren't allowed to go five miles from their homes, often preventing them from going to a loved one's funeral, or visiting their children in hospitals, or even seeing their sons off when they went to battle for America.


End file.
